NEMESIS by Rey Aurelio

Rey Aurelio confronts his “NEMESIS”

The human body has ever been the single subject at the very heart of the visual arts. That fact alone should not take anyone by surprise. Certainly neither landscape nor still life, and discounting, of course, the bison, the horse, and the deer in the Paleolithic cave paintings done at the dawn of humanity, when the concept of art did not even exist. Anthropologists and art historians have theorized that the animal imagery was spiritual in nature obviously, despite the stick human figure of the hunter. In sculpture, one can point out to the pregnant stone body of the fertility goddess, the so-called Venus of Willendorp, the tiny four and a half inches artifact dated over 25,000 BC.

But for the glory, majesty, and drama of the human body, male and female, draped as well as naked, one turns to the sublime art of Michelangelo. His supreme achievements in sculpture are the Pieta and the David. That great heaving muscularity that distinguished his sculptures are also much in evidence in his murals for the Sistine Chapel. One only has to marvel at the looming Adam, solid and adamantine, emerging upon God’s breath of life, his long outstretched arm reaching out to meet his Creator

All these awe-inspiring images seem to have inspired the contemporary works of Rey Aurelio, on view at the SM Art Center, in a solo show titled “Nemesis, organized by Paseo Gallery.

Indeed, “Michelangelesque” is the only appropriate descriptive term to the way Aurelio seemingly “carved “ these brawny and muscular male human figures . musculature, dramatically misted in chiaroscuro, where dark and light struggle for possession of the human flesh. The figures, however, transcend their superlative state as mere “Life Studies” through a haunting narrative woven by the artist.

Renante was inspired by the concept of nemesis, which means, “the inescapable agent of someone’s downfall.” The word comes from Nemesis, the goddess of vengeance, in Greek mythology, dispensing retribution and punishment on those who have committed some wrongdoing or evil act.

Moreover, Renante invests his works with a quality ascribed to Michelangelo’s works , known as “terribilita,” referring in particular to his sculptures. In Renante’s works, single individuals are depicted in stances and postures caught in wildly intense emotion and struggle, their physiognomy and musculature becoming a terrain of pain, physical as well as psychic, inflicted by an unseen avenging force. Sinew, tendon, and ligament are pulled to the limit, contracting the human body, thus into an inexpressible shape. Interestingly, the word muscle comes from the Latin “musculus,” which means “little mouse.” In its contraction, the various muscles start to look “like mice moving under the skin.” One imagines the bones within, however, snapping from the sheer tension and excruciating pain.

Like contemporary slaves, driven to the ground, they grovel in agony for mercy from their righteous oppressors. Renante, however, is not keen to have these works interpreted simply from a literal and physical point of view – though the viewer cannot help but marvel at the artist’s technical finesse and expertise. Still he would rather that the works convey to his audience the universal metaphors for spiritual and emotional states that are then signaled and expressed through the suffering of mortal flesh.

Rey Aurelio himself may be the nemesis of every aspiring artist who fails to master the depiction of the human anatomy.

​​​​​​​-CID REYES
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The Art Center is at SM Megamall, 4/L, The Artwalk, Bldg. A, EDSA corner Julia Vargas Ave. Mandaluyong City. For inquiries, call Paseo Gallery: Tel no: (02) 706-5514. Mobile: 0917-7135959.

“HEEDFUL”| 60”x48”| Oil on paper	“REPENTANCE”| 60”x48”| Oil on paper	“PIECE OF SOUL 9”| 25”x19”|Oil on paper	“FALLEN 2”| 24”x18”| Oil on canvas
“PENUMBRA”|84”x72”| Oil on canvas	“Hombre Persante”| 48”x48”| Oil on canvas	“FALLEN 4”| 25”x19”| Oil on paper	“PIECE OF SOUL 4”| 24”x18”| Mixed Media
“PIECE OF SOUL 2”| 48”x36”| Oil on paper	“I SCRATCH YOURS, YOU SCRATCH MINE” 48”x36”| Oil on canvas	“PIECE OF SOUL 5”| 30”x24”|Oil on canvas	“PIECE OF SOUL 6”| 30”x24”|Oil on canvas